But a shortage of slots, an airport term for certain flight arrival and departure times, at LaGuardia prevented the Portsmouth, N.H.-based airline from returning to Norfolk as planned.

"The slots that we had allocated for Richmond and Norfolk were not available due to a competitive issue," Warren Wilkinson, the airline's marketing and sales director, said Wednesday. "We decided at this point it would be best to delay the schedule."

The airline had also planned to fly three 34-seat turboprop planes between Richmond and LaGuardia every day while operating as a regional carrier for Delta Airlines.

"Our decision has nothing to do with the market or the value of Richmond and Norfolk," Wilkinson said.

Business Express formerly offered Delta Connection flights between Norfolk and its Boston hub at Logan International Airport but stopped in early 1993 because passenger demand could not support them. A recent increase in passenger traffic at the Norfolk and Richmond airports convinced the airline's executives to resume service to Virginia, Wilkinson said.

He said the company could re-enter the Virginia market next spring.

The 1,350-employee Business Express is the largest regional carrier in the Northeast with 500 daily departures from its hubs at La Guardia and Kennedy in New York and at Boston's Logan International Airport.

Since April, the regional airline has boosted its number of daily departures from 470 to more than 500, Wilkinson said. The airline operates 66 turboprop planes and jets and serves 32 cities in the Northeast and in Canada.